Up and Coming City Beach 10km Swim...

City Beach, Western Australia

 With just eight days till the first Rottnest Channel 10 Kilometer Qualifying Swim, this week has been very up and down for me. I am so pumped ready for the ten kilometer swim after a great swim last weekend at Cottesloe Beach. I am so ready for the 10km swim mentally and physically. All the training, my training partner and I have done has put us in good stead for what ever City Beach can throw at us. Currently the weather is looking awesome with a beautiful 32 degrees C, with very little breeze at all, so looking at almost perfect conditions. So fingers are going to be crossed every day this coming week for these conditions to hold true.


Becoming a marathon swimmer has helped me to deal with my inner need for control. In the ocean you have no control over anything, other than yourself and your mind.

For instance last weekend when there was plenty of seaweed, stingers (jellyfish) and rough conditions. There is that moment when you might think it will be to hard and yes you can bail out and remove yourself from the water if it gets to bad, or you can push through the obstacles that get in your way. I made the decision while still on the sand that no matter what was before me, I would take and "swim with it". You do need to have courage to loose sight of the shore to take on marathon swimming. You deal with the unknown a lot of the time as the wind can change and the conditions of the water do change so very quickly.

I remember standing on City Beach last year ready to do the 2.5 kilometer swim, I was nervous as, as I had been dumped so badly many years before and still remember it like it was yesterday. I was in the last wave of swimmers to hit the water, and as we were standing and waiting the waves were getting bigger by the minute. I had the chance to step back and pull out of the event. For some reason I didn't. I guess that part of me that says, if you can't do this then you won't be able to go further. I managed to get through the 2.5km swim, with stings and very rough waters. Once I finished the swim, I had a great feeling of accomplishment, and knowledge of how to deal with such conditions.

 I happily tell anyone I can about my swimming and I have such a deep love for it. I will tell people about the rough waters, the jellyfish stings, the clear waters and seeing the fish below you, the occasional feeling of swimmers rage, when someone just plow through you, and yes it happens. The response from those I talk to is, interesting, as they just can't understand why I would swim in the ocean where there are sharks, jellyfish that sting, and everything else. I guess once you let your negative thoughts of the unknown go and see, when the waters are clear the fish swimming below you and when you swim over the reef and the fish its such an amazing experience, something that so many miss out on for their fear gets in the way. I had an amazing experience last summer when I had a baby black tip reef shark swim below me, it was a first and yes I was a bit startled, but felt so luck to see such a beautiful creature.

As I step into the end of this week of training and into another week of tapering, I hope to be able to keep a level head and not let my frustrations that have surfaced this week to get to me, like they started to over the past few days. Again this is another learning curve as the next swim will be my biggest to date in the ocean. This is another lesson in patience, something that I believe is my biggest lesson in life.

 Have a great weekend everyone...

Hayley xx